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ITP-1 Project Work Breakdown Structure with Durations (Individual project)

Please be sure to read the Team Contribution Assessment and Grading of Team Assignments and the Project Documentation Requirements sections of the ITP Master Document.

Assignment for the ITP-1 Project Deliverable

The objective of this assignment is for each member of the team to individually determine the tasks that will be required to build the IT project for the client organization and to put these tasks into a format that will facilitate your team's efforts (next week) to build a single WBS for the next ITP assignment.

Please post your ITP WBS assignment in your Assignment Folder; please include your last name and "ITP- 1" as part of the file name (example: Jones - ITP-1 - WBS).

This assignment has two parts.

Part 1. Work Breakdown Structure in Microsoft Project

Review your project charter and the overview of the ITP posted in the Syllabus and in the previous project assignment. Read the Week 2 Lecture - How to Build Work Breakdown Structures. Then, individually, develop and submit a project work breakdown structure (WBS). Use the textbook and LEO Conferences (and other valid sources, such as PMI) and submit in Microsoft Project .mpp format. The Readings in your weekly Content will help with your assignments.

Note that subsequent ITP deliverables will be in Microsoft Project, so if you have not yet loaded Microsoft Project, please do so now.

Required:

Your copy of Microsoft Project needs some configuring before you get into this assignment. Hint: This step will count towards your grade.

NOTE: This is a one-time setup.

• Launch Microsoft Project and open a Blank Project

• Open the Project Options dialog

• Verify your calendar options settings look EXACTLY like this

http://www.pmi.org/
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• Verify your scheduling options look EXACTLY like this

• Verify your calculation settings look EXACTLY like this

You will find that there are MANY ways to add information to your Microsoft Project. If you find yourself struggling with the software, please consider:

• Using Microsoft Project's Help feature

• Using the tutorials at Microsoft.com

• Checking out online tutorials on YouTube

• Looking for other on-line help

• Using the library or a bookstore for supplemental texts

• Asking me for help

Your WBS should include all work necessary to complete the scope of the project, specifically including the technical IT work of the project, but also including the project management work as well. At this stage, this deliverable should not yet include predecessor-successor linkages, time or duration, dates, or resource (cost, staff, etc.) data. This is because Microsoft Project performs a complex algorithm with each project element that is added. To see the impact of each project element, we need to add them one at a time. For this assignment, after the WBS is completed, we will add only durations in this assignment.

Here are some suggested Level 2 WBS elements:

• IT System Design

• System Hardware

• System Software

• System Networking

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• System Test

• Project Management

• System Transition

With respect to hardware, software and networking - lower level WBS elements will deal with Orders, Delivery, Receiving, Installation, etc.

To reiterate, there is a lot more to the WBS than this. Do not spend too much time getting "down into the weeds". A good size for this class would be no more than 10 Level 2 elements. Decompose these to Level 3 elements (or Level 4 if absolutely necessary). Remember, the lowest level elements (those with indented sub-tasks, not indented summary tasks) will be your work packages.

Pay close attention to the Week 2 Lecture, How to Build Work Breakdown Structures, including:

• WBS Creation process

• Definitions

• Convention for WBS structure

• Considerations for building the WBS

• Schedule development process

• Terminology

You MAY work with your teammates to determine the summary tasks. On your own, you should provide your own summary tasks that may be different, plus sub-tasks based on your own knowledge of the project, the project scope and what you know about IT systems .

Now you are going to define and list sub-tasks within each work package. Once you have the sub-tasks loaded, apply estimated durations for each one. When working with your schedule, you want to be careful not to interfere with Project's scheduling engine. This means only loading durations for sub- tasks, NOT the Summary Tasks! Just because Project does not stop you from changing Summary Task durations, it does not mean changing them is a good idea!

Scheduling conventions in Project

• Do not enter dates (i.e., Start, Finish, etc). Only enter activity durations and let the MS-Project scheduling engine calculate the dates.

• Try to avoid overly small (micromanaged) or overly large durations (which bite off more than you can chew). Keep the durations reasonable and realistic. A best scheduling practice is to keep sub-task durations to 80 hours (10 days) or less.

• Do not use "manually scheduled" sub-tasks. Make sure every sub-task uses the "automatically scheduled" setting. Auto-Schedule is on the tool bar at the top and includes push-pins and blue arrows. When manually scheduled, the dates are essentially hard-coded (set to a defined date) and not allowed to automatically adjust when the sub-task durations and critical paths change.

• In Microsoft Project, the Summary Tasks are "roll up" tasks and should have no work themselves. Do not enter a duration for Summary Tasks as Microsoft Project automatically calculates their durations from the durations of the sub-tasks indented beneath.

Submit Part 1 as a single Microsoft Project (.mpp) file. Include your name in the file name and post in the Assignment area for ITP-1. Be careful to post in the right place.

Part 2. Answers to Questions in Microsoft Word

Read and think through the options and alternatives suggested by these questions before you build your WBS. Then finally, when your WBS is completed, answer the following questions and submit them as a

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word doc in addition to your wbs file (above). As a 400-level class, writing should be of a style appropriate for a senior level college class.

"Yes" or "No" answers with no explanations or discussions are not appropriate answers.

1. Does your WBS include everything in your team's charter and all deliverables (promised deliverables to the client organization customer)? Does your WBS address tasks that were not discussed in the Project Charter? If so, what are they and how did you decide you needed the additional tasks?

2. Does your WBS include project management tasks necessary to manage the project, as well?

3. Did you develop your WBS top-down or bottom up approach? Why? To answer this question, please define the terms first. This is an opportunity to include additional research to answer the question completely.

4. Did you use a product-oriented WBS, or a process-oriented (e.g., SDLC phases) WBS, or something else? What are the definitions and how did those definitions affect your decision? Why?

5. It is often a good idea to prepare the WBS in an OUTLINE in Word instead of Excel, or Excel instead of Project. This helps team members visualize the order of the tasks and how the tasks might decompose into lower levels. Did you do this (use Word or Excel first) or did you only use Excel or Project? If you only used Project, did you find yourself rearranging the order of the tasks as you were inputting them or as you were finishing the WBS?

6. Did you initially approach it graphically (e.g., like an organization chart) or tabularly (like a list or table), or something else? Why?

7. Did you work with your teammates to determine the major tasks or did you do it all on your own? How well did it work?

As you prepare for the next assignment, please discuss with your teammates how you will manage the WBS. One possibility is to divide up the major tasks among teammates. Each teammate would have responsibility for that "area" and all areas will be consolidated into a single Microsoft Project document. However, all the team members' submissions taken together should cover the entire project WBS. You may use any other approach that works well for your team. Any approach other than each team member doing the entire project WBS must be explained in each submission.

Submit the Microsoft Word document in the Assignment area. Please include your name in the file name and be sure to post in the right place (ITP-1).

Afterward, each team member should post his/her WBS in the LEO Group area for merging and for consolidation into a single team WBS for the next ITP assignment.

Does it seem as though perhaps there is not enough information to complete the project and the WBS? If so, please ask the client/customer (your instructor).

Grading approximate breakdown by areas include:

• General: Structure, Format, Mechanics, Style (~5%)

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• WBS accomplishes the project (~20%)

• WBS, technical (~30%)

• Schedule (durations) (~35%)

• Questions (~10%)

Rubrics and Grading for the ITP-1 Project Deliverable

Spelling, punctuation and formatting are worth a significant portion of the grade/points earned. In other words, if a WBS is graded as an 8.4 but has several writing/editing errors, the grade for the assignment could be as low as 6.0.

To earn 90-100% of the points available for this assignment -

All requirements of the assignment are met. The WBS includes at least 10 major summary tasks and at least 60 lower level sub-tasks. The sub-tasks are all single-verb statements, and sub-tasks (lower level tasks) are indented to the appropriate level. The WBS is logical, complete, and flows well from beginning to end. The textbook and at least 2 references are used from academically credible sources are used to help build the WBS. A Reference Page is included. All questions in Part 2 are answered in a writing style appropriate for a senior level course; background is included and decisions and reasoning for decisions are included. The WBS has durations for lowest-level sub-tasks. Summary tasks have no hard-coded durations assigned (Microsoft Project automatically calculates their durations). Durations include minutes, hours, days, and weeks in whole numbers (no decimals!). There should be a single project start milestone and a single project end milestone. Microsoft Project is used (vice MS Word or Excel), the Notes feature is used to provide supplemental information, and at least two other features of Microsoft Project have been used and discussed in the text document. All questions in Part 2 are answered. Additionally, the WBS is logical and flows well from beginning to end.

To earn 80-89% of the points available for this assignment -

All requirements are met. The WBS includes 8-10 major summary tasks and 40-60 lower level sub-tasks. The sub- tasks are verb statements, with 4 or fewer tasks that do not begin with a verb or 4 or fewer that are double verbs. Sub-tasks are indented to the appropriate level. The WBS is logical and flows well from beginning to end. There should be a single project start milestone and a single project end milestone. At least 1 reference is used from an academically credible source and the textbook is used. A Reference Page is included. The textbook is used and discussed in the text document. The WBS has durations for lowest-level sub-tasks. Summary tasks have no hard- coded durations assigned (Microsoft Project automatically calculates their durations). Durations include hours, days, and weeks in whole numbers (no decimals!). All Part 2 questions are answered.

To earn 70-79% of the points available for this assignment -

All requirements are met. The WBS includes 7-9 major summary tasks and 30-40 total sub-tasks. The sub-tasks are verb statements, with 7 or fewer sub-tasks that do not begin with a verb or 5 or fewer that are double verbs. Sub- tasks are indented to the appropriate level with 5 or fewer that are not at the appropriate level. The WBS is logical and flows well from beginning to end. There should be a single project start milestone and a single project end milestone. All questions are answered.

To earn 60-69% of the points available for this assignment -

The WBS includes fewer than 7 major summary tasks and fewer than 14 lower level sub-tasks. More than more than 7 sub-tasks do not begin with a verb or are double verbs. More than 5 sub-tasks are not indented to the appropriate level. The WBS is not sequential or does not follow a logical order. The WBS does not include a project start milestone or a project end milestone. Not all questions are answered.

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Less than 60% -

WBSs that do not meet the requirements will earn a zero. WBSs that are not original work will earn a zero.